


Broken Fairy Tales

by afterandalasia



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Genre: Age Difference, Angst and Romance, Backstory, Canon Universe, Character Death, Community: disney_kink, F/M, Female-Centric, Infidelity, Mild Sexual Content, Pre-Canon, Religious Content, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 01:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her heart always belonged to another. But she never believed that her heart was hers to give.</p><p>The story of Belle's mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once Upon A Time

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes contain spoilers for story.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Based on the awesome prompt from Disney Kink: Belle's mother is married to Maurice, but loves another. She has one last night with him, resulting in her pregnancy with Belle. Belle is the spitting image of her mother, who takes the secret to her grave.
> 
>  
> 
> This plot bunny completely caught hold of me! This has actually been quite interesting to write, as well. There ended up being some Hunger Games-like overtones to Eloise's character and her relationship with Bernard, quite unintentionally.
> 
> This fic does not take into account the line "Every morning just the same/ Since the morning that we came" and its implications that Belle and her father/parents moved to the town during her lifetime. It considers the line more metaphorical -- for as long as the town has been there, it has been the same. Or that's my excuse, at least!
> 
> Chapter titles are all traditional opening or closing lines of fairy tales or folk tales. All taken from www.folktale.net/.
> 
>  
> 
> The religious content tag refers to Belle's mother, who is religious. This content is not meant to offend.

It started, as fairy tales are supposed to, on a dark and stormy night.

To be precise, it was a blizzard, the worst that any in the town could remember. The snow came across as much as down, so thick that Eloise could hardly see ten feet in front of her. The wind stung her face, and her tears were frozen on her cheeks as she stumbled through the shallowest parts of the snowdrifts that she could find.

It couldn't be much further. She squinted as best she could, trying to make out the flicker of a fire in the darkness, any sign of another house. Walking had turned into staggering had become struggling just to stay upright, clutching her cloak around her.

Her footing slipped out from below her, and Eloise screamed, tumbling through snow. She scrambled to try to grab onto something, anything, rocks or wood or ground, but her frozen hands clawed at the air until suddenly, every bone in her body jarring, she hit the ground. Hard. Lights might have flashed in front of her eyes, or that might still have been the snow. A sob broke through Eloise's lips, and hot tears ringed her eyes again, but they were whipped away by the wind or froze again. Her wrist crunched when she tried to move it, and she cradled it to her chest.

Mama. She had to get to the village, to get help for Mama. She needed the doctor, to break the fever. Eloise managed to pull herself to her feet again, her clothes threatening to freeze to her wet skin, and kept walking. She had been heading towards the village before; she could only hope that she was going the same way.

Eventually, her feet gave way beneath her again, and with a cry she fell to her knees. She didn't want to walk any more. It was so cold, and she hurt so much. Surely it would be easier to sleep.

Her head lolled, and she fell sideways, landing without a cry despite the pain that shot up from her wrist. Cold. The edges of the wood beneath her cheek didn't even hurt, her face was so numb, and she barely noticed how uncomfortable it was.

So much easier to sleep. The feeling of cold was fading as her eyes started to fall shut, and the fear melted away with it. Much better to sleep on this pile of wood than fight further through the snow.

Warm orange light fell over her, and Eloise blinked at the suddenness of it but did not move. Her body could not have responded even if she had wanted it to. A shadow filled the light, became the shape of a person, and the last thing she saw as her eyes fluttered closed was a figure bending over her, breathing incredulous curses.

She cried out in pain as she was lifted, not quite asleep yet, and felt herself jostled into the house. “Mother!” a voice was crying, a young man; the sound rumbled in his chest where he held her. “Mother! There's a girl, she needs help!”

Pain seeped into her body with the heat as she was lain down again, on something hard but smooth this time, and Eloise opened her eyes slowly. The young man stood over her, one of her hands in his, trying to rub it enough to bring blood flow back. As her fingers twitched, he went to take her other hand, but she screamed in pain and he drew back a step.

A woman appeared beside him, with the same golden-blonde hair and dark green eyes, but older and wearier in her expression. “Mon dieu, it's Eloise Dupont! Child, what are you doing in the cold?”

Her wet cloak was peeled away and pulled out from underneath her. Head starting to clear, she realised that she was the front room of a small house, on the table and close to the fire. It felt so hot, but she shivered violently, even as the woman peeled off her coat and replaced it with a thick wool blanket instead.

“Eloise? Eloise, can you hear me?”

Her teeth were chattering. She didn't know how long that had been going on. Eloise blinked and looked at the woman for a moment, before finally remembering who she was. “Mme. Soulier?”

Mme. Soulier ran one hand over Eloise's wet hair. She was the inventor's widow, a seamstress who made the prettiest dresses in town, though Eloise and her mother didn't have any of her work. “Yes, child, it's me. What are you doing here?”

“What...” she frowned, having to think. She could remember wanting to sleep, then trying to find something... “Mama!” It came out as a cry. “Mama!”

“Your mother? What's wrong, Eloise?”

Tears ran down one side of her face, but she still could not feel them on the other. “My mother is sick. She needs the doctor.”

“I'll get him,” said the young man again. Eloise turned, going shy now as she recognised him. Maurice. He was not particularly tall, but he was strong and handsome in a way, and he was always kind to people when he spoke to them. He was rather older than Eloise, nineteen years to her eight, but he never treated her like an idiot just because she was a child. “Art can handle the storm, and I know the way.”

“And I'll look after Eloise,” replied his mother, then looked back to the girl with a reassuring smile. “You're going to be okay, you hear? It's all going to be okay.”

 

 

In the morning, when the storm had broken but was not yet gone, Eloise was bundled up in her now-dry clothes, and Maurice took her back to her house where the doctor was still with her mother. The wind and snow made her shiver as much with fear as with cold, but Maurice held her firmly, murmuring reassurances when she clutched more tightly at his arms. His warm body was safety, and she held on to him with shaking hands.

He helped her down from the horse as they reached the house, and she ran inside, not even pausing to take off her cloak or boots before running upstairs. Her wrist was tightly strapped in bandages, and still hurt, but more than that it was a desire to get to her mother quickly that drove her.

She burst into the bedroom, heart in her mouth, and ran to her mother's side. The doctor gently stretched out one arm to restrain her, and she looked and him desperately.

“Will she be all right? Please, please...”

Having spent most of the night crying, she just did not have any tears left. Her mother was ashen, bones sharp beneath her skin and sweat running from her forehead from the fever. The doctor looked grim but did not immediately say the worst.

“She's got a chance. I'm doing what I can. Maurice told me that your wrist was injured; you should let me see to it.”

But Eloise did not look round. Her eyes were still fixed on her mother, watching for the rise and fall of breath which said that she was still alive, still holding on. Since her father had died in the forest, her mother had taken care of them both, gathering food and hunting as well as any man to trade in the village. When she was younger, Eloise had gone with her, but now she was old enough to stay at home sometimes and work on things for the house, or tend their small garden.

Her mother was the only thing she had left.

The door behind her creaked gently open, and the doctor looked up. “M. Soulier. Is everything all right?”

“I've stabled my horse, and I spoke to my mother this morning. She will manage by herself for a while. I will stay here, and help Eloise to care for Mlle. Dupont, until she is well again.”

A dry sob escaped Eloise's lips when she realised that Maurice, at least, had some faith that her mother would survive. She took her mother's hand, trying not to think about how fragile it felt, how pale it seemed compared to the strong, vibrant woman that she knew.

 

 

Maurice stayed with them even after the doctor left, gathering for them and paying the doctor's bills even though Eloise promised that she would pay him back one day. Her mother remained unconscious for some time, and one cold night even Eloise thought that she might die.

She knelt at the window, and prayed. Promised anything, if her mother would survive. Said that she would marry Maurice and pay him back for everything that he had done, if only her mother would live.

Her hands clenched tightly as she made her pact with the stars, but she did not cry. It would be many more years until she did.


	2. And She Lived Till She Grew Up

Eloise grew to be beautiful, but reserved, and mostly kept to herself even as she made her way into adulthood and boys of her age began to pay attention to her. Her hair was the colour of rich oak, shining almost-gold in the summer, and her eyes were blue-green and should have been expressive in any other face. 

Some of the townspeople thought her arrogant, but Maurice knew that was not the case, and that she was simply not used to conversing much with people. Her mother had weakened after the illness when Eloise was eight, never really recovered from it, and Eloise had all but become an adult even from that moment. Maurice had shown her how to make traps and snares for the woods, and how to get the animals out of them. The rest she had known for herself: skinning the animals and cleaning the fur; tending to the garden out back, which grew year by year as she became more skilled; making preserves and jams; even collecting and chopping firewood, by the time that she was in her teens. She traded fur for a few chickens, her fine preserves for cloth and foods which she could not grow or gather. Eloise's mother had retained just enough strength to cook and sew, most of the time, and occasionally even to do some cleaning around the property.

“Mme. Dupont,” said Maurice in greeting, spying the slip of blue among the reds and greens most of the town preferred. “Mlle.”

Eloise turned as he addressed her, and favoured him with one of her rare smiles. “M. Soulier. Good morning. I hope it finds you well.”

She had told him once, in a tone which made it sound like a confession, that blue was her favourite colour. It was hard to find good blue cloth, and expensive, and she had but one dress in it. It was her Sunday best, only meant for church.

“Very well, thank you,” he replied, and bit back the urge to add that it was better for seeing her. Eloise always sat at the very front of the church with her mother, her head bowed and eyes closed in great concentration as she prayed. “And yourselves?”

“Somewhat improved,” said Eloise's mother. She had been a proud woman once, but her illness had hollowed and aged her before her time, and there was already grey in her hair. “The fine weather may well have helped, of course. You should come to dinner tomorrow,” she added firmly, making Eloise blush. “We are to have chicken.”

Eloise had said a week or two ago that one of the hens was not laying well, and would probably be for the pot before too long. She had not said – though Maurice had remembered – that it would be her nineteenth birthday in a couple of days as well.

“Mme., I would not intrude upon your hospitality...”

He meant it, quite truthfully, even if he knew that Mme. Dupont never stood for such a thing. Though she did not remember much of her illness, she said, she remembered Maurice's presence and how kind he was to Eloise.

“Nonsense,” she said briskly. “We will see you at sundown, and no later. Though if you feel indebted, a bottle of your uncle's excellent wine would certainly not go amiss.”

Stifling a smile, Maurice inclined his head. “Very well, Mme. Until tomorrow, then.”

Eloise gave him a look which he could not quite read, something wistful about it but something deeper beneath. “Until tomorrow, Mons... Maurice.”

“Eloise,” he said softly. He didn't miss the colour in her cheeks and the way she looked away, or the triumphant smile on her mother's face. Smiling, Maurice turned back towards the side of the town where he lived, and resisted the urge to look back at Eloise and her mother making their way towards their forest home.

 

 

It was not uncommon that he took dinner with the Duponts, or that they visited him and his mother when Eloise's mother was in better health. Maurice did indeed take a bottle of his uncle's good wine, a twenty-year-old vintage, and Eloise's mother knew how to make even the toughest of chickens tender in the stew pot. They talked about the woods, about the farms, about the inventions on which Maurice was working. The candles burned down, and they talked on, and eventually Eloise's mother excused herself to take the plates and cups into the kitchen.

“I'll help,” Maurice offered, starting to get to his feet, but Mme. Dupont waved him down again. Perhaps it was being raised by his mother that meant he was unable to disobey her, or perhaps it was her own force of will.

“Don't even think about it. You are a guest here. And I am not such an invalid yet.”

That was her pride showing through, and he knew it from the pain that flickered behind her eyes. Eloise was also halfway to standing when she heard the words, and carefully sat back down again, turning her eyes away. Those days when her mother was well enough to work were still common, but not as much as they once were. The winter had been hard again.

“Thank you, then,” said Maurice, with an inclination of his head. Eloise's mother smiled and finished gathering her things.

Once she was out of the room, Eloise turned to Maurice with a careful smile. “She thinks very highly of you. And appreciates your friendship.”

“And I, hers,” he replied. For some reason he found himself faintly nervous, trying to fold his hands comfortably on the table before reaching into the pocket of his waistcoat instead. “And yours as well, of course. I am sorry that times have been so hard to you, Eloise.”

She waved it away almost carelessly, the slight fall of the smile on her lips the only sign that she gave that it might sting. “I am not one to contest life. It will find us how it may.”

“Well, that is a fair sentiment,” said Maurice. He licked his dry lips, then withdrew the slim package from his pocket and slid it across the table towards her. “And I how this finds you well. Happy birthday, Eloise, for tomorrow.”

“Oh, but I could not...” her voice was shocked, and she moved to push the book away.

He put his hand over hers. Her fingers were slender, and cold. “It is your birthday, though you may do your best to ignore it. And I thought that you had agreed not to contest life?”

That bought a small laugh from her, and she smiled another of her smiles for him. A lock of her hair fell loose to stray across her forehead. “Thank you,” she said. Maurice released her hand, and she picked up the book, carefully undoing the bow and folding the ribbon aside before peeling the paper open. Every touch was cautious, making sure that she did not damage something that might be reused.

Finally, he saw a light come into her eyes as she gasped, delighted, at the sight of the item within. “ _Manon Lescaut_! Oh, how marvellous!”

“You like it?” Maurice could not help feeling relieved, even as Eloise ran her hand reverently over the front cover and then delicately opened it to look blissfully at the pages within. “I was not sure what to get, but the bookseller...”

Her hand reached out to clasp his, and with the other she clasped the book to her chest. “It is perfect. Thank you so much, Maurice.”

“I'm... I'm so glad,” he said, then felt himself colour from the mere fact that he had stammered for the first time since he was in short trousers. Eloise, though, gave him the most beautiful smile that he thought he had ever seen, and out of the corner of his eye he thought that he saw her mother appear in the doorway for a moment, nod approvingly, and step out of sight once again.


	3. There Was, There Was, And Yet There Was Not

There were no candles for Eloise to stay up late read the book which Maurice had given her, and the next morning she had to be up before dawn to feed the chickens and collect the eggs before setting off into the forest. She was greatly looking forward to reading the last book in Prévost's series, but it would have to wait until the evening and if she could get her chores done early enough.

She hummed as she made her way out towards her line of snares. It was not the best time of year for meat, but there might be a late hare on the ground or some early wood pigeon in the trees. The chicken stew would keep well, in any case, as long as the pan was tightly sealed and it was reheated well each time. Some morels would go down well too, she thought, checking once again the knife at her hip. It was quite instinctive by now.

Whistling cut through the trees, a few stray notes and almost tuneless, and Eloise chuckled to herself. “Still doing no better, Bernard?” she called out.

“My whistling is hugely improved,” he replied defiantly. Bernard stepped into view, a huge man – tall and broad – with curly black hair and a powerful bone structure. He had a blunderbuss slung over his shoulder, but was far better with a bow and arrow, and was moderately good at foraging when he had the patience for it. “Your ear has not.”

She made a dismissive sound. Spring was definitely gaining ground; she could not even see her breath as she spoke. “If you would like to believe so. Have you any plans for the day?”

Bernard looked around mock-thoughtfully. “I was thinking a morning at the fayre, a fine dinner in town, and perhaps an evening at the opera to top it off.”

“What a fine plan that sounds, sir,” she replied. They exchanged a laugh, and Bernard shifted his blunderbuss. “For now, may I suggest checking the snares and gathering some dandelions?”

“Well, I suppose that is one alternative.” He gave a careless shrug.

She had known Bernard for only a few months, but she felt more at ease with him than she had done in years. Perhaps more at ease than she had done with anyone. He was a fine hunter, and respected her as a forest-woman in her own right, besides not having the least thoughts of her as arrogant, or strange, or anything of that sort. It was well known that, with his looks, many of the girls around the village fancied themselves in love with him, but for all that he flirted back he had told Eloise that he had no real thoughts of marrying any of them.

She wasn't sure why that was important. It did not matter to her, in any case; she had long ago made her pact with God that she would marry Maurice if her mother survived. Her mother still lived, and to Eloise it was clear which way her fate lay. All that was left was for Maurice to ask her – she was already surprised that he had not. Time was, after all, whittling slowly away.

 

 

“You know,” said Bernard, as they split the finds from the day between themselves, later that afternoon, “they say that a fairy witch lives in these woods.”

Eloise raised an eyebrow. “Do they, indeed?”

“Oh, yes. They say that she tests people, to see whether or not they are pure of heart, and that if you fail she will place a dire curse upon you.”

“And if you succeed?”

Bernard opened his mouth to reply, then stopped, a puzzled expression creeping over his features. “You know, they never say that part.” As Eloise began to laugh, he shrugged and went on. “I suppose that she only reveals herself as a fairy if you fail. I've never heard anyone say what the curses actually involve, either. Do you want the pigeon, or the hare?”

“Hare, if you don't mind. We've had to cull one of the chickens lately, we've got feathers everywhere still.”

“I could do with some for fletching. Can't afford goose at the moment.”

She looked up from the mushrooms that she was counting, laughter fading on her lips. “Is everything all right?”

Bernard gave another one of his shrugs, but she could see the smile had gone as well. This time, he did not look up as he spoke. “My father's cough isn't passing. We had to call the doctor in.”

“I'm sorry. He's good, you know.” Eloise reached over to lay her hand over his, in what she hoped was a reassuring way, but he pulled it away to keep sorting through the greens. “I'll pray for him.”

“ _Prayer_.” Bernard muttered under his breath, lip curling. With a start, Eloise drew her hand away again. She knew that Bernard did not attend church, but had presumed that it was in order to continue hunting, to help feed his rather larger family. His widowed sister lived with him, with her two children, and his father had an old injury to his leg which made it hard for him to work wood as he once had. He still made small items to sell at the fairs, but could not make wheels or larger items.

She did not talk to him about God, or church, or the bargain that she had made when her mother was so desperately ill. The woods were a place for privacy, and she supposed that she owed him that much at least.

“Are we done?” She fought hard to keep her voice and her hand steady as she slid his share of the mushrooms towards him. “I'm heading to the town market tomorrow morning. Need to get everything ready tonight.”

It was true; she would need to be up before dawn to get to the next large town in time to get a good stall at the monthly market. Her furs always sold better there, especially when her snares were carefully designed to not damage the pelts. Another reason to want the rabbit; if she worked fast, she should be able to have this one prepared as well.

“Yes,” Bernard replied. Eloise got to her feet, brushing leaves off her skirt, but paused to look down at him. Seated, and with his head bowed, he seemed diminished before her. She leant down, putting her hand beneath his chin to turn her eyes upwards. “It will be all right, Bernard. Things will work out as they are fated to.”

“Fate,” he said, another echo, and her heart clenched in her chest at the mere fact that the anger was gone from his voice. Impulsively, she leant down, and pressed her lips to his forehead. His eyes fluttered closed for a second, then opened again, the brown deep and rich and ringed with green at the centre. “I don't like the thought of putting my life into the hands of _fate_ , Eloise.”

He rarely said her name, not so often as she spoke his, and now he said it almost reverently. It made her feel tremors run down her arms. “It can be comforting,” she replied. “Knowing that things will turn out right.”

“I would rather make my fate.”

She drew her hand away again, but he reached out and caught her wrist. Her skin felt hot under his touch as he slowly stood up again; they drew closer together, and she wasn't sure which one of them it was that did it, until they were chest to chest.

“Eloise...”

His breath brushed her lips, and she tilted her face up towards him. For a moment they paused there, interminable, her breath feeling tight and fast, and then finally she reached up and kissed him on the mouth.

His lips were smooth, soft, dry compared to the wet of his tongue as it slipped across her teeth. With a soft moan, Eloise parted her lips to him and felt the kiss go deeper, their arms tightening on each other. She responded in kind, uncertainly but aching, her tongue tracing out the contours of his mouth as her shaking fingers sought out the contours of his cheek.

How long it went on, she did not know, did not even want to know, but a whisper in her head said, _you betrayed your promise_ , and she jerked away as if she had been burned. “No,” she said aloud.

“What?” Bernard's arms slipped from her even as she stood frozen, like a statue, her arms still raised to the air.

“This is wrong. This...”

She turned, scooping up her things in one hand, and fled.

 

 

Betrayal.

The word stained itself across her conscience as she ran, then slowed to a walk, and finally stopped with breath heaving and dry sobs bursting from her. She had made a promise, she had _made_...

With a final, shuddering breath, she hauled herself back to the moment. Her hand went up to wipe her eyes, but there were no tears there, and she looked uncertainly at her fingertips for a moment before forcing herself to continue walking towards the village.

It could not happen again. It should not have happened at all, but all that she could do on that count was ask for forgiveness. She could not break the deal that she had made for her mother's health; it had to have been made benevolently, had to have been good, had to have been _right_. It would be right.

Eloise continued home, put her things in the kitchen, and went straight to her room. Her mother called to her from the kitchen, but she could not bring herself to reply, not even to look, as if doing so would unleash the torrent of fear within her. As if it would make real the betrayal, and her mother would die before her very eyes.

Instead, she went to her room. With shaking hands, she brushed out her hair, shining in the sunlight and in waves down to the middle of her back. A lock fell across her face, but she pushed it away, without meeting her own eyes in the mirror.

Blue. Her favourite dress, her best. She had bought the fabric when she was sixteen, and both she and her mother had worked together to make the dress. For a moment, Eloise almost faltered again, burying her face in the fabric. It smelt of herbs and home, but also of incense and church, the only place where it was ever worn. It was almost too appropriate, but she laid it on the bed anyway.

She washed her hands, her face, wiping the water away with careful strokes. She had made her decision long ago, been set on the right path. There were right and wrong things to do, after all – was that not the logic behind every superstitious folk tale of fairy women in the dark woods? This had to be right.

Please, she thought, let it be right.

The dress still fit her, of course, but today it felt constricting, as if she yearned to break free from her own skin. Fear, and nothing more, she told herself. She remembered the fear from when she had thought her mother would die, and it felt quite the same: all flighty and jumpy, as if every sound was a threat. Or an accusation.

“Eloise? Are you all right?”

She could hear her mother approaching the stairs, and replied hurriedly to save her the trouble. “Yes, mother, I am fine. I just...” she swallowed. “I need to thank Maurice for the birthday present he got me.”

“Ah,” said her mother wisely. Eloise stepped out and peeped over the bannisters for the moment. “A good man, Maurice. A good man.”

He was. Never had she doubted that, even when she was a child, even when she had doubted her own goodness. Eloise smoothed out her dress, though there were no wrinkles there, and put on her best shoes and a white band to go into her hair. If she kept to the cobbled paths, she would get no mud upon her, no marks.

No visible marks, her conscience said again. She tucked her hair back behind her ear and went downstairs again, making herself move calmly and smoothly. Her mother had moved into the kitchen now, looking through the gatherings of the day, and looked up with a smile as Eloise approached.

“You look beautiful, darling.”

“Thank you.” Composure breaking for a moment, Eloise swooped closer and drew her mother into a tight hug, eliciting a soft sound of surprise. “I love you, Mama.”

Her mother gently stepped back to hold her at arms length. “Is something wrong, Eloise?”

“No, no,” she said, a little too quickly. She steeled herself again. “You know how I hate birthdays.”

Her mother kissed her on the head. “Ah, but they mean that I can celebrate another year of having you for a daughter. And that is the best gift I could ever have asked for.”

“As are you, Mama,” she replied. She hugged her mother again, then found a bright smile. “Now, how about I give Maurice and his mother some of those late oyster mushrooms?”

Her mother patter her arms with a reassured smile. “I think that sounds like an excellent idea. Let's find you a basket.”


	4. We Do Not Really Mean It, But They Say...

It was still the middle of the afternoon when she arrived at Maurice's door, for all that it felt like a whole day had passed since that mad, terrible moment in the woods when she had almost thrown everything away. Eloise knew that she would have left whispers in her wake as she walked through town – gossip was as much an occupation as farming in these parts.

Fear had still been breaking over her in waves when she had left her house, but it had been slowly ebbing to nervousness by the time that she reached Maurice's home. She almost knocked on the front door, but noises from the yard caught her attention and, cocking her head to the side, she made her way round instead.

Maurice was fiddling in the depths of one of his machines. The central barrel had a metal chimney sticking out of it, while three iron forms swept out below. Eloise looked at it curiously before settling on the best comparison she could make.

“A plough?”

“Argh!” Startled, Maurice knocked his head on the inside of the machine, then withdrew with a sheepish look and one hand rubbing his scalp. “Oh, Eloise, I am so sorry...”

“No! I should be apologising!” She hurried over, reaching out as if to touch his head as well, and was relieved to see that there was no blood. Maurice rose to his feet, and her hand brushed his arm instead. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes,” he said jovially. “Who knows, it might knock some sense into me?”

He laughed, and Eloise managed to laugh along with him despite the fluttering sensation still in her chest. When it seemed he was pausing for breath, she extended the basket towards him. “Here. As thanks for the book.”

Maurice took the basket and looked in curiously, his expression lighting up at the sight. “Oh, how marvellous! My mother's favourite; you have such a good memory for these things. But Eloise,” he looked up, and she almost worried for what was coming, “you don't have to thank us! It was a present.”

“Then those are a present,” she replied. 

With a nod, Maurice seemed to accept this, and set the basket on the windowsill. “And I thank you for them.”

Eloise took the deepest breath that she could manage, then reached out and took Maurice's hands in hers. A look of surprise crossed his features,

“Maurice,” she began, carefully, “you have always been the greatest of friends to me. You have always been there when I have been in need, without... without patronising me. You have not looked down on me the way that some have.”

“Eloise-” he tried to interrupt, but she squeezed his hands.

“I know that this is not exactly how things are done, but I find that... you and I are not exactly the normal sort of....” the word failed her. Maurice's expression was still tender confusion, but he did not interrupt her as she brought herself to go on. “Maurice, you are my greatest ally in this world, and I... I wish that it could be more. As I said, I know that this is not the way that this is usually done. But, Maurice... would you consider marrying me?”

The confusion on his face blossomed into shock, then he smiled and embraced her tightly. “Oh, Eloise!” He began laughing. “I feared terribly what you were about to say. But...” his words calmed. “Are you sure that you could want this? You are young, and beautiful, and though I love you dearly I cannot but think-”

“Youth? Beauty? You think that I care for such things? You are a _good man_ , Maurice, you have been so good to my family, and such men are hard to come by. I would take a good man over a million godly beauties.” She raised his hands, and gently pressed a kiss to each of them. “Maurice, I can think of no other that I would want to marry.”

It was true, she promised herself. She had long since made her decision that she would marry Maurice, and knew that she could be happy with him. Or at least content. Were she to marry any other, she knew as well, she could not bear it.

His hands squeezed hers gently. “You are certain?”

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps we should do this more properly.” He pulled their hands slightly towards him, so that he could kiss each of them in turn. “Eloise Dupont, will you marry me?”

She smiled, and meant it. “Yes, Maurice. I will.”


	5. But That Is Another Story

Eloise's mother was delighted, and cried with joy as she embraced both her daughter and her future son-in-law in quick succession. Maurice's mother looked between them and nodded approvingly. By the next Sunday, the whole town knew that Eloise was finally betrothed, and young men were supposedly heartbroken at the thought. Eloise did not actually see anyone acting particularly heartbroken, but she did note that some of the other young women of the town treated her in a more friendly manner afterwards.

Gossip might have been endemic, but it was such a common thing that any particular piece of gossip did not tend to have much of a lifetime. For a while, it was fashionable to talk about how the unfriendly beauty and the strange inventor seemed to have finally stopped dallying and agreed to wed. Not that they were setting a date yet, but the agreement had clearly been made.

Otherwise, somewhat to Eloise's surprise, life returned to normal. She gathered and huntered in the forest, tended her garden, bought fabric to make clothes and sold furs and preserves and the rarer mushrooms which she gathered. She and Maurice would often eat at each others' houses, with their mothers, and they celebrated together when the machine he had been working on – a steam-powered plough – proved itself to work well.

Maurice did not push her to set a date for the wedding, and Eloise could not bring herself to do so. Her mother mentioned that a summer wedding would be nice, and she idly agreed, but her fears were elsewhere.

She did not hear from Bernard for almost two weeks, once the news of her betrothal was broken. Once or twice she thought that she heard his whistling in the forest, or caught sight of tracks which might have been made by his boots, but she never saw him even on the lines of snares which they usually checked together.

Finally, she rose particularly early one morning and made her way to the end of the snares, waiting with her arms crossed over her chest and trying to look more confident than her trembling gave away.

There was no more warning than the crack of a twig, and she turned to find a blunderbuss pointed towards her. “Bernard!” she yelped.

“Eloise!” He lowered his gun quickly, then went to step away. “My apologies. I did not mean to disturb you.”

He got as far as turning before she managed to step in front of him, putting both hands to his chest. “Bernard, please. Don't go.”

He was shaking as he looked down at her, but his lips were pressed tightly together and his hands were clenched. “Eloise, I...” His voice cracked, and when he recovered himself it was cold. “Congratulations on your engagement.”

“Does my engagement somehow mean that we can no longer be friends?”

“No.” He stepped away, but as her hands slipped away he reached to grab one wrist. The grip was so tight that it almost hurt. “But it means that we can no longer be lovers, and there was a time that I thought...”

“Bernard...”

“I love you, Eloise.” The words were almost like a blow, and she could not say why. It struck her just below her sternum, so hard that she felt she could have fallen were it not for the hold on her wrist pinning her in place. “And I would have married you tomorrow were it not for the fact that you seemed so set against marriage. You never mentioned it. You talked more of the forest and of the present than you ever did of the future. And you have barely even spoken of Maurice. How can you have decided from nowhere to marry him?”

She wrenched her hand away. “Who are you to say that it is from nowhere?”

“Well, I can say for certain that it is not from love,” Bernard spat. She should have told him to leave them; she could have struck him, so hot was the anger burning beneath her skin. “Because I have felt love, and yet I have not seen it in you, not when you talk to him. Are you even capable of love, Eloise?”

The change in his voice made her feel as if she had been whirled around. From anger it had become desperation, and the pain written dark in his eyes held her trapped in place. She wanted to heal that pain, in a way she had felt about no other. Save, perhaps, her mother, when she had been so terribly ill.

Unable to find words, she simply acted. Eloise caught hold of Bernard and dragged him roughly to her, kissing him with a ferocity she would not have thought that she could have gathered. Bernard's arms wound around her, crushing her to his chest, but she did not resent the movement; she reveled in it, pressed tighter, kissed him harder.

This time it was Bernard who pulled himself away. She looked at him breathlessly, seeing his rumpled hair, and flush in his lips that her mouth had put there. Her heart, and her loins, ached together, shame threaded through it all.

“You are to be married,” said Bernard. His shoulders were set as if in anger, but his eyes were shining. “And I...”

“Bernard?” It came out barely more than a whisper.

“My parents have found a girl whom they expect me to marry. It is a suitable match, they say, and she does not mind marrying into a family who is rather... unusual. I do not know her much, but what does that matter in a marriage?” His voice turned bitter, and there was accusation in his eyes. She could almost feel, for a moment, the world splitting in two beneath her fingers.

“I am to be married,” she echoed.

“Then that is that.”

They stood looking at each other for what felt like an eternity, but was probably no time at all. An inconsequential infinity. It was Eloise who was the first one to turn away, unable to look back in case Bernard was still looking towards her. For the first time since she was eight years old, she felt tears upon her cheeks, but did not reach up to wipe them away or change the path which they might take.


	6. That Was Just The Beginning

Bernard was married at midsummer, and Eloise did not speak to him much again. Gossip – of course, there would be gossip – said that he and his wife were more ill a match than anyone had thought, and that they were inclined to fighting and to angry words. It led to knowing looks being passed between the residents of the town, and Eloise tried not to see or hear any of it.

She idly agreed with her mother that a fall wedding would be fine, and then a winter one, and before she knew it a full year had passed since she had been betrothed and nothing had been said on the matter. Still Maurice did not press her for a time, though he would more often drop by with flowers, with books, or simply with a smile and kind words. She still enjoyed talking with him, although it was difficult sometimes to think of things to say.

Late the following summer, Bernard and his wife had a child. A baby boy. They called him Gaston, and it was the main topic of gossip for the next few weeks how much he resembled his father, but with his mother's bright blue eyes.

Sometimes, Eloise would see Bernard and his wife in the street; his wife would look smug as she swept past, and Bernard would not meet her eyes. She did not care, she swore.

As winter came around, Eloise's mother began to sicken again. Her coughing grew steadily worse, though she did not start to cough up blood again as she once had, and she was less able to work around the house.

“Once we are married,” said Maurice casually, one night as they were sitting and watching the stars, “do you think you would want to live in my house? You and your mother, I mean. It has room. For all of us.”

She loved her home, in the forest, with its garden out back and the room she had grown up in. But perhaps this was right, and this was what should be done. Eloise nodded.

“We should have the wedding in spring,” she replied. “Once the weather turns. Good signs, and all that.”

Maurice kissed her on the forehead, very chastely, and she pushed aside the memories of how she had kissed Bernard. Their paths had separated now.

 

 

Once the date was set, arrangements had to be made. There had to be a band and a dress, of course, and flowers, and invitations to be sent out. Eloise was glad to have Maurice's mother's help with everything; her own mother continued to ail, no matter how much the doctor fought for her improvement. He kept saying that things looked hopeful so long as she held on and kept positive, and positive she stayed, always talking happily about how she was looking forward to her daughter's wedding.

Eloise wore white, with a blue trim, and had forget-me-nots in her bouquet. She did not tease Maurice about the first white hairs appearing at his temples, or that his hairline was slowly starting to creep back. He looked so happy to be wed, and for the first time in a long while she felt happy as well, because spring was coming, and her mother's health always improved in the spring.

Maurice did not kneel beside her when she prayed that night at the foot of the bed, but he did not ask questions of her, and did not tease her as she knew that some might have done. He simply leant against the doorframe, and waited, and kiss her cheek when she rose and turned to face him. Which was all that she could have asked for.

He kissed her cheek again, and then her lips, and then gently down her neck as he undid the laces of her nightgown and peeled them away.

And this was _right_ , she knew, and felt a warm contentment suffuse her at the thought.

 

 

The spring had looked as if it was going to be fine, but rain came suddenly and heavily, causing floods in some of the smaller villages and damaging crops in almost all of them. Eloise found her gathering harder than usual, and Maurice turned his work to trying to find waterproof materials than were easier to work and use, particularly more waterproof fabrics.

Worse, though, was her mother's declining health. The tiredness and the lack of hunger, at least, Eloise could deal with, taking on work to make sure that her mother did not, and encouraging her to eat as much as she was able to.

The same sickness was sweeping through the village. It took them a while to realise – or perhaps a while to admit – that it was consumption. The garlic and horehound which Eloise gathered in the woods were in greater demand from ever, not least from the doctor himself. 

The deaths crept in at first. Sadly, the creeping fast became a tide, and within just a couple of months it seemed like there was a death from every household. M. Besson, the bookseller; his brother came down from Paris herself to arrange the funeral and then take over the bookshop. Bernard's mother. Maurice's mother became desperately ill, and for a while it seemed that she might be the one to die, but finally she seemed to be recovering and both Maurice and Eloise released the breaths which they had in effect been holding.

“I won't go to the summer fayre in Villefranche,” Maurice said one night as they lay in bed, in what Eloise had come to think of as his 'reassurance' tone of voice.

“What?” She put aside her book, looking round aghast. “Why ever not? Your work with the lanolin mixtures has been going so well!”

But he shook his head, going to wrap his arm around her until she moved away and sat more upright in their bed. “Your mother is still unwell. I should stay here with you.”

“She's improving.” Eloise's heart seemed tight in her chest for a moment, but she was sure that the worst had passed. “And this is important, Maurice, you've said so yourself...”

He frowned for a moment, reaching up to touch her cheek gently. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” She pressed a kiss to the tip of her husband's nose. “I'm sure things will be fine.”

 

 

Maurice set off on a cool, damp morning in the earliest dawn hours, and Eloise gave him a lingering kiss before watching him leave in the cart. Things finally seemed to be looking better. She actually found herself smiling and humming to herself as she started on her morning chores, the chickens and the garden at least made easier without having to deal with their carthouse Art as well. Art always preferred Maurice to be the one to care for him, anyway.

She greeted each of the chickens by name, and played at dancing with them while they pecked around her feet for the grain and flapped their wings as if they were waving. She was whistling when she caught sight of the open window upstairs, and stopped when she realised that her mother was watching. Eloise blushed, but her mother just smiled and stepped back from the window again.

Maurice was only to be away for six days, and Eloise had lived with just her mother for far longer before that. It was not that she did not like having him around, but she had missed the independence of living by herself, and enjoyed the days in the forest, and the nights spent able to stretch out across the whole of the bed. Her mother seemed happy in those days, a distant smile on her face, though she was particularly tired and kept to herself a lot.

It was late on the fourth night that Eloise awoke with a sudden weight on the centre of her chest. It was as if something was binding her lungs closed, and she tried to breathe but felt darkness filling her lungs instead.

Beneath the pounding of her heart, she heard the rhythmic sound of coughing. Terrible, deep coughing, like had been heard too often in the past weeks in the village.

“No,” Eloise breathed, realisation dawning as she flung back the sheets and groped her way through the dark house. There was not even a visible moon to light the way. She knew it was her mother, even as she prayed that it would not be, and stumbling on thin air she finally managed to make her way into her mother's room.

There was a candle lit at the bedside; it gave enough light to confirm her fear. Her mother was hunched over in bed, blood spotting the sheets and dripping from her hand where she coughed.

“No, Mama, please...” Eloise ran over to the bed and caught hold of her mother in the middle of another coughing fit. When had she become so frail; how could she have hidden it beneath even the shawls and loose dresses she had taken to wearing? “Mama, hold on. It's going to be okay.”

“I'm sorry...” Her mother gasped. She clutched at Eloise's blouse with bloody-red fingers, and panic consumed her, burning in her stomach and leaden in her chest.

“Don't say sorry. Don't say that.” It was as if she could not breathe either. “Sabine!” It came out a scream, as if she was eight years old again and Maurice's mother could bring the doctor and save her mother. “Sabine, help us!”

Her mother wasn't coughing now, just wheezing, her breath shallow and hissing with each one. Eloise held her tightly, but her mother nestled against her chest as if she were the child. There was not even fear in her expression. She looked into Eloise's eyes one last time and smiled sadly.

“I'm sorry, my angel. I love you.”

The last words were just a breath, no sound to them at all. Then her mother's breathing stopped altogether, and Eloise screamed her terror and her horror into the night and could not even think of a prayer.


	7. So The Story is Told, And Here It Begins

Mme. Soulier said that she would arrange for the laying-out of the body, and for the funeral. Eloise should have done it, but she had to be pried away from her mother, still sobbing helplessly. One of the other young women from the village sat with her, and cradled her as she cried, until the sun started to rise and it felt like she had no more tears to shed.

“I need to get some air,” she managed. “I need to walk.”

She got to her feet, pulling herself out of the girl's grasp. She couldn't even see her face, couldn't even manage to care who it was.

“Eloise, you should stay-”

A hand fell on her shoulder, but she slapped it away and grabbed her cloak off the back of the door. Her boots were by the back door, and she pushed past the doctor and the priest who had come round to see to the body and talk to the family, and took off at a run towards the forest.

It felt cold even in the sunlight, even as sweat beaded on her brow and tears seemed to run in boiling lines down her cheeks. Without even thinking about where her steps were taking her, Eloise ran down one of her own trap-line paths, breaking into a small clearing and catching herself on one of the trees before her knees gave way.

Her mother was dead.

The words were there, the image of her mother dead in her arms, but she could not wrap her mind around them. She was still crying, keening and making hopeless, ugly sounds that she could not stifle in her hands even as she sank to her knees and buried her face. The earth was cool and damp beneath her knees, between her fingers as she clenched them into it.

“Why?” she asked aloud. The word was choked. She looked up at the thin, silvery-grey clouds, as if she was somehow expecting an answer. Why had her mother died? Why so terribly, and why now? She had done what she was supposed to. She had been happy. Had that been it, being happy? Was she just that certain to rip through life and leave it in tatters around her? Her lips formed the word 'why' again, but this time no sound came from them.

The tears stopped, after a while, though she stayed on her knees, wondering whether it was worth the heavy effort of each breath. Slowly, her head lolled down until it touched the cool ground. She had been here just weeks before. She had picked mushrooms and gathered fat hen and been planning the meals that she would cook for Maurice and herself and her mother...

Mama...

She heard the footsteps behind her, but didn't care that she had, even as they sped up to running. “Eloise! Oh God...”

Hands caught her under the shoulders and pulled her up; she gave a startled yelp, and looked round to see Bernard, with fear and relief written on his face.

“You're okay. Thank God you're okay. I was so worried.” He rubbed tears and earth from her cheek, kneeling beside her, then cradled her face in both hands. “I'm so sorry, Eloise.”

“It's not fair,” she whispered. She had done what she was supposed to do. She had kept her side of the bargain.

“I know,” Bernard replied. He did not, of course. Not the depth of it, at least. But there was such tenderness in his voice that it made her look up at him, tear-streaked and snotty and red-faced as she must have been, and find in his gaze... love. Tender and helpless and desperate to say something that could comfort her. She could read Bernard as easily as any book, and she could see her pain reflected in his eyes.

Once more, she kissed him. He gasped against her lips, went to pull back, but when she made a little sound in her throat he wrapped his arms tightly around her and kissed her back.

It was wrong. But she wasn't so sure of that any more. Because the pact had been broken and her mother was dead and she had wanted Bernard for so long, felt so right when she was with him. One of her hands gripped the front of his shirt, and the other reached up to twine in his thick black hair. She kissed him hungrily, hard, _passionately_ , and so help her if it wasn't a feeling that she had longed for. Hot and wet and soft all at once, welling up through her, so like the feel of his mouth, the taste of his jaw and his throat as she kissed down them.

“Eloise...” Bernard drew away just a step, and her arms ached from the distance. “We shouldn't...”

“To hell with fair,” she spat. It was probably the viciousness of the words that made him look so shocked, but what had burnt her tongue was the word hell itself, one which she had never spoken before. Tears sparkled in her eyes, sharp points against the misty, dewy look of the morning around them. “I wanted...” she shuddered, then her voice lost its bite and fell. “I want you.”

He made a choked, wordless sound.

“I've always wanted you.” The words tumbled out of her, and she stepped back in to him again, running her hands over his chest. It was damp with sweat from where he must have run out after her. “And I should have told you, and I felt the world crack down its axis the day that I didn't. I should have married you.”

“I'm sorry for what I said that day,” Bernard replied, and it was a sweet ache that he knew immediately which day she meant. “That you couldn't...”

“I can,” she replied. She could almost feel her heart in her chest, raw and swollen but _there_ , in a way she had never been aware of it before. “I can love. Because I love you.”

She kissed him again, and wrapped her arms around him, and when his hands traced her body through her cloak she gave a little stifled gasp against his mouth. Performing her marital duties with Maurice was... well, it was just that, for both of them it seemed considering that Maurice did not seem to much care for sex, or demand it, or even seek it out on a frequent basis. It was fond, and he was gentle, and Eloise was always quite content to agree to it, but there was not...

 _This_. She dug her nails into Bernard's shoulders, felt his hands caress her breasts, tilted her hips into him as if somehow that would be message enough. Perhaps it was – or perhaps it was the way that she dragged him to the ground with her, fumbling to undo the clasp on her cloak and spread it on the ground beneath them. 

Bernard did not ask. Not about this; there was no question of her being unsure, not with the way that she pulled him down and kissed him and reached beneath his shirt just to feel the heat of his skin and the hardness of his muscles. The questions that left his tongue were simpler: _Where?_ she wanted his tongue, his hands, his mouth, _like this?_ , as he touched her, hands trembling as if he was struggling to restrain himself from falling upon her like an animal, _harder?_ even as she begged for him.

She needed to feel his hands on her arms, and she told him so, breathlessly and distantly astonished at her own straightforward words. She struggled out of her dress and pulled his clothes away from his skin, and wrapped her legs around him and had to muffle a cry of pleasure in his chest.

It couldn't be wrong. It couldn't. There had never been anything in her life that felt this right – that felt this _good_. Words tumbled through her mind as she tried to find the right ones for it: amazing, wonderful, sublime... so many words that had only ever been in her books, but now were real and alive and running through her, so that she panted Bernard's name against his skin as something built in her, burning tighter and hotter with each thrust until she reached some peak did not crash, but flew, her heart pounding in her ears and the pleasure almost terrifying as it wrapped around her and bore her far from here, from the life that fractured and broke around her, from everything that had been wrong for so long now.

For a while afterwards, they lay in each other's arms still, sweat turning chilly in the air. Eloise still felt strangely airbourne, as if the signals her body was sending her were coming from a great distance, but when she turned to Bernard to tell him such, she realised that there were tears in his eyes as well, tears which he was fighting hard to hold back.

“Bernard?” she murmured.

He stroked her hair, and kissed her damp brow. “I love you,” he said quietly. “I always have. I always will.”

And she understood, from those words, that they could never be together. That path had become overgrown and choked with weeds, impassable now. They could not even look along it, to see where it might lead and what it might hold. There was just a shadow, and a memory, and perhaps old footsteps hardened and baked into what had once been soft ground.


	8. And If They Have Not Died, They Are Living There To This Very Day

Maurice returned from Villefrance a few days later, to be greeted by a funeral which had been delayed for his return and a wife who had grown drawn and distant. He gathered her to his arms. “I'm so sorry, my dear,” he said quietly, rocking from side to side. “I'm so sorry.”

His tone of voice was sweet, and sad, and she cried mutedly into his chest again. It was not like letting go this time, not fierce or frightened; it was gentle and suitable for mourning. Not a lie, but a different truth.

She did not remember too much of the funeral, some songs and flowers and then a coffin lowered into the soil. It was just a scrap, a dusty shell of what had been life. Words could not do justice to the way in which her mother had smiled, how she had laughed until she cried, how careful she had been in showing Eloise which mushrooms were good, and which would kill. It was as if her memories were only a shadow of what had happened.

Time passed. Summer swelled, and she returned to the forest again. Leaves. Mushrooms. Rabbits. Ducks. She blamed her tiredness on her grief, and tamped down her fear of consumption by reminding herself that she did not cough, and that she was not losing weight. Even when, a few weeks after her mother's death, she started to struggle to keep food down, it was fear of sickness that drove her to talk discreetly to the doctor.

His response almost took her feet from under her.

_Pregnant_.

She knew, instinctively and utterly, that the child was Bernard's. But it was Maurice whom she told about the pregnancy, and Maurice with whom she shared the joy of the developing life. He was so sweet, so kind, and she knew that he would make a good father.

Her daughter was born in early June, and they called her _Belle_ , though like all newborns she was more scrunchy and red than really beautiful. But she was perfect all the same, and Eloise wept the tears of joy that every mother weeps.

She did not meet Bernard's eyes again, save once, by accident. He congratulated her on her daughter, then looked at Belle for a long time, and she could see the recognition in his face. He turned and walked away without a word.

 

 

In every way save her blood, Belle was Maurice's daughter. She was curious, forgiving, understanding. Eloise pretended not to know whence her temper came, but was torn on whether or not she should hope that her daughter would learn the same restraint as she had done. When she saw Belle's expressive eyes, though, any hope that there was melted away like snow before the sun.

Eloise taught her daughter to read, and to delight in reading, and to care for the house and to love the world.

When Belle was five years old, the winter was hard again, and in the depths of it Eloise found herself coughing hard. She waved away Maurice's fears, and hid the blood that spotted her handkerchiefs.

She died when Belle was six, and knowing that she was dying she considered telling her daughter who her father was. But then she thought of Maurice, and how much he loved the girl, and decided that being a father was more than just the chance of blood.

 

 

The ground was so hard that Maurice worked his hands bloody in digging her grave. He was surprised that Bernard offered to help, but knew that they had been friends once, and accepted gladly.

Belle did not understand why she had to wear black, or why her mother was not there, and Maurice struggled to find the words to explain to her. The village turned out, because although Eloise had been strange and some had thought her standoffish, they remembered the days that she had gone out in the rain to fetch them herbs when they were ill, and the wonderful preserves that she had made.

Among the crowds, Maurice could not have seen the way that Bernard's eyes darkened, as if something inside him had also entered the grave. Nobody recognised that moment as the one when Bernard's relationship with his wife soured beyond all repair, when his hatred for all women spilled forth in the wake of the one whom he had loved.

 

 

Maurice watched his daughter grow beautiful and headstrong and vibrant, like her mother in many ways save for perhaps burning with a brighter flame.

He kept his memories of Eloise and his love for her. In the graveyard there remained a stone, that tried to give words enough to Eloise, and never would.

Eloise Soulier née Dupont   
1704 – 1731  
Much loved, much missed

And in the forest the paths faded, and the traplines rotted away, and the whisper of doomed lovers was no more known. 


End file.
